Saturday of the Fourth Week of Easter
In today’s Gospel, Philip asked Jesus, “Show us the Father, and that will be enough for us?” (John 14:8). Jesus replied to him, “Have I been with you for so long a time and you do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father," (John 14:9). This passage challenges us to look at the times when we failed to recognize Jesus. Do we know Him well enough to see Him?
We can see Christ’s presence in multiple ways. For instance in Mass, Christ is present in three ways: the Word, the Sacrament of the Eucharist, and the People of God in the congregation. Many Catholics nowadays often remember Jesus Christ’s presence in the Eucharist and forget the other two. Do we recognize Christ in Scripture and in each other? Jesus told us that the greatest two commandments are to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves (Matthew 22:36-39; Mark 12:29-31; Luke 10:27-28; John 13:34). Seeing Christ’s presence in all those three ways helps us fulfill those commandments.
Do we recognize Jesus Christ among us in our Bread of Life parish family? Joining and uniting five parishes and a faith community is not easy. Each one has their own separate and unique identity, culture, and interests. Likewise, we see this challenge among the first Christians in today’s first reading. They struggled to include Gentiles in their predominantly Jewish community. However, evangelization to the Gentiles led to spreading the Gospel to the whole world and to including all people even those like me, a person who is neither Jewish nor descended from someone from the Roman Empire. Perhaps, then, like the Christian community in the Acts of the Apostles, something new and greater can grow out of our parish family community. How can we share our community together so that people can see Jesus Christ and the unbounded joy of Easter?
—Sr. Emily Sandoval, FMI